How Do You Jew?

SuperJew logo on t-shirt worn by Seth Rogen in the movie Funny People

I am about to embark on a new project. I’m calling it the How Do You Jew? project, and it is basically a an excuse for me to unabashedly interview a bunch of people. You guessed it – they will all be Jews. Some of them I do not know yet, but most of them I do. A few may be famous, but most will be just regular Joe MOT’s. I like hearing people’s life stories and asking questions, so this is simply a pretense for legitimizing my sticking my nose into other people’s business. Oh, and if you haven’t already figured it out, I am doing this because I am very interested in the subject of Jewish identity.

I know, I am probably trying too hard with the name. Too cute. Those Gen Y-ers and Millenials have taken all the good ones – Jewcy, Jewlicious, Heeb, etc. What’s an old timer like me to do? Those youngsters come off sounding edgy and ironic, and I just come across as trying way too hard to be hip. At least I refrained from ordering myself one of those SuperJew t-shirts worn by Seth Rogen in the latest Judd Apatow movie when I got one for my teenage son (who wears it proudly at his public school).

There’s not much of a plan. Basically, I am going to find an interesting cross section of people who are game and I am going to ask each of them two questions:

How did the world let you know you were Jewish?

How do you let the world know you are Jewish?

They can understand these queries in any way they like, and they can answer them however they want. I’ll follow up with some probing questions and hopefully we will have a fascinating and edifying conversation. And then I will share it with you. Stay tuned.